Fifteen Percent Concentrated Power Of Willhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/
Fifteen Percent Concentrated Power Of Will - Dreamwidth StudiosMon, 29 May 2017 21:46:38 GMTLiveJournal / Dreamwidth Studiosrachelmanijapersonalhttp://v.dreamwidth.org/485598/76086Fifteen Percent Concentrated Power Of Willhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/
8880http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2150811.htmlMon, 29 May 2017 21:46:38 GMTThe Green Book, by Jill Paton Walshhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2150811.html
This is the first book I’ve read by Walsh. I think she’s best known for a children’s time travel novel, <i>A Chance Child</i>, and official Lord Peter Wimsey fanfic. <br /><br />Earth has been environmentally devastated and is about to be destroyed; it’s unclear if that’s because of war or something else. Many people have already fled in spaceships. The book is from the point of view of a very young girl, Pammy, whose family is with the very last group to flee, in a low-grade spaceship and with minimal preparation and supplies. The mad scramble to get out results in everyone being allowed to bring exactly one book, but no one consulting with each other to prevent duplication; this has major repercussions on the planet they end up on. <br /><br />This is children’s sf, very short, written in clear, simple prose but with some remarkably beautiful imagery. It’s written from the point of view of a very young girl, Pammy, but she uses “we” and “Pammy” rather than “I,” reflecting that she’s part of a community of children. <br /><br />The best aspect of the book is the evocative descriptions of the alien world and its landscapes and ecology. I absolutely love this sort of thing, and the world here is my favorite type: dangerous, strange, and beautiful. The book was worth reading just for that. It also has an excellent ending.<br /><br />I had some problems with the plot, both because some crucial points required everyone to be idiots and that some things needed more explanation to be plausible or emotionally resonant. <br /><br />The rule about bringing only one book is supposedly because of weight/space issues, but a tiny children’s paperback and the complete works of Shakespeare are both considered “one book.” This makes no sense. It should have been determined by weight or mass, as those were the reasons for the restriction. <br /><br />Other issues are spoilery. <span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2150811.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005OQHYFY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B005OQHYFY&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=3c2d36c51c3d1f26e4a0432fc930564a">The Green Book</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=am2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B005OQHYFY" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=2150811" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2150811.htmlgenre: science fictiongenre: childrensauthor: walsh jill patonpublic12http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2142737.htmlFri, 26 May 2017 20:15:54 GMTWelcome to Books: FMKhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2142737.html
<span style='white-space: nowrap;'><a href='http://melannen.dreamwidth.org/profile'><img src='http://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png' alt='[personal profile] ' width='17' height='17' style='vertical-align: text-bottom; border: 0; padding-right: 1px;' /></a><a href='http://melannen.dreamwidth.org/'><b>melannen</b></a></span> has been culling her bookshelves by playing "Fuck Marry Kill" via poll. In the interests of doing the same, and also getting back to posting more book reviews, I have decided to join her. (I am doing "fling" rather than "fuck" just because my posts get transferred to Goodreads and I don't want EVERY post of mine on there littered with fucks.)<br /><br />How to play: Fling means I spend a single night of passion (or possibly passionate hatred) with the book, and write a review of it, or however much of it I managed to read. Marry means the book goes back on my shelves, to wait for me to get around to it. (That could be a very long time.) Kill means I should donate it without attempting to read it. You don't have to have read or previously heard of the books to vote on them.<br /><br />Please feel free to explain your reasoning for your votes in comments. For this particular poll, I have never read anything by any of the authors (or if I did, I don't remember it) and except for Hoover and Lively, have never even heard of the authors other than that at some point I apparently thought their book sounded interesting enough to acquire.<br /><br /><div><a href="http://www.dreamwidth.org/poll/?id=18415">View Poll: FMK: Vintage YA/children's SFF</a></div></poll-18415><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=2142737" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/2142737.htmlgenre: fantasygenre: children'sgenre: science fictionbook recsbooks: fmkpublic37http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1287811.htmlThu, 16 Feb 2017 17:46:31 GMTA Different Light, by Elizabeth Lynnhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1287811.html
<i>In a future world, cancer has been all but eradicated. Jimson Alleca can live another 20 years with drugs and a peaceful lifestyle -- if he stays in space-normal. But he's willing to risk it all to make the jump into the Hype, the shimmering "not space" for one year among the stars.</i><br /><br />I have a huge thing for choosing a short time of glory over a long stretch of not-so-great, so this premise was right up my alley. I also love the trope of "space will kill you but let's go anyway." <br /> <br />This book is and is not that. The blurb is correct as far as it goes, but the tone and content are not what I expected from it. It's much quieter, the emotions are far more low-key, and what Jimson actually does with his one year before leaving the planet kills him is nowhere near as dramatic as I expected. I liked it for what it was, though the beginning is stronger than the rest, but I'm still looking for the book the blurb promised. <br /><br />Jimson is an artist with bone cancer under control with treatment, so long as he never goes into space; if he does, it will metastasize and kill him within a year due to radiation exposure. His art is acclaimed in worlds he'll never see, and he's still hung up on Russell, the boyfriend who bailed on him for outer space fourteen years ago and hasn't contacted him since. Jimson has gotten increasingly depressed, bored, artistically blocked, and trapped. Then Russell sends him a photo of himself with no note, and Jimson decides that he's had it: he'll take his one year and go look up Russell.<br /><br />My favorite part of the book was this part, where Jimson is making his decision and taking interim steps toward it. There's some really beautiful writing and imagery. It's also, despite the sound of it, less about Russell (who has not yet appeared) and more about what Jimson wants to do with his life in general. <br /><br />Then Jimson finally goes off-planet. I was expecting a desperate, defiant grab at glory and wonder in shimmering not-space. What he actually does is plonk down in a town on another planet, have a low-key affair with a woman pilot, and hang out in a bar. For months. And months. He has ONE YEAR TO LIVE, because he went off-planet, and he spends a whole lot of it not doing anything he couldn't have done on his own planet. I'm not sure if this was the point or what, because eventually Russell shows up and things take a different turn, but also, unfortunately, into anticlimax.<br /><br />Russell is a giant bag of dicks. Again, I'm not sure if he was supposed to be or not, but I really disliked him. (I did like the portrayal of sexuality - most characters are bisexual and this is unremarked-upon - I just disliked Russell.) He's a space pirate, and realistically they would probably be jerks, but seriously? JERK. He ditches his doomed boyfriend and doesn't contact him for fourteen years, then sends him a photo and nothing else. The vanishing was because he was flipped out over Jimson's illness, and is understandable. The fourteen-years-late space selfie with no note attached? JERK. He then proceeds to be a dick for the rest of the book, though at least Jimson gets to be with him and is at least somewhat pleased about that. <br /><br />Again, given the suggested delicious melodrama of the premise, Jimson is an incredibly low-key character and so is the book. There's one scene that sort of lives up to the "shimmering hyperspace" bit but Jimson's experience of hyperspace is that it's kind of reddish, and he spends most of it wandering around the spaceship making sure the characters who are doing exciting stuff don't forget to eat. <br /><br />There's some mild space adventuring which is nowhere near exciting enough that <i>I'd</i> give up my whole life for it, followed by an ending which you may or may not read as a cop-out. <span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1287811.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br />This is at least the second book I've read in which someone chooses to go into space for a brief period of glory before it kills them. The other is Emma Bull's <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0105JDN7C/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B0105JDN7C&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=46f8a9b6fd6b42e2e249462992c454b4">Falcon</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=am2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B0105JDN7C" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />, which I like a lot but which skips most of the "period of glory" part, jumping from the moment right before the hero goes into space to several years later, when his time is about to run out. <br /><br />Does anyone know of any more books with that premise? Especially if they actually write it the way it sounds like.<br /><br />Only $4.00 on Amazon. <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J3EU31U/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00J3EU31U&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=e40c7291de4ac2a5b9fe5098f94d07ba">A Different Light</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=am2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00J3EU31U" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1287811" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1287811.htmlauthor: lynn elizabethgenre: science fictionpublic8http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1283087.htmlSat, 14 Jan 2017 20:35:14 GMTWest of January, by Dave Duncanhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1283087.html
First off: <i>great</i> title.<br /><br />I’m going to excerpt a bit from a <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/6902926?book_show_action=true&amp;from_review_page=1">review that liked it more than I did</a> because the premise is so high-concept:<br /><br /><i> I was captivated by this book. Set on a world which revolves so slowly that everyone has to move steadily West in order to escape Dusk and Night, which is a devastating ice world, and avoiding High Summer, so hot it kills everything in its path, West of January is highly original and superbly written. Not only is the world divided into Months and Days, each a particular climate steadily moving west, but the inhabitants are very segregated, each following the same patterns every cycle, never learning from the previous one (that often ends in disaster) because they do not pass their knowledge down. </i> <br /><br />Vernier is a lost colony on a planet whose rotation is almost the same speed as its revolution, so the habitable zones constantly but slowly move across the planet. So people can be born in the grasslands of Tuesday, north of September, and be three months old when they die of old age. I had a little trouble wrapping my head around this. However, Duncan obviously had it very clear in <i>his</i> head. There’s diagrams and everything. On that level, it’s pretty neat in an old-school, cool idea sf way.<br /><br />The book starts out very strong, with the protagonist growing up in a weird, vividly depicted herdspeople society. Then he leaves home and it becomes a picaresque, with him visiting a whole bunch of societies which are wildly different from each other. I would have liked this, but there were a couple problems. <br /><br />One was that the coolest part of the concept got a bit lost in the flurry of “and here’s the sea-people! And the jungle people! And the original settler people!” That’s fine, but there could have been any reason for that; I wanted more of the implications of the 200-year days. <br /><br />The other was sex. So much sex. Knobil goes somewhere, and every woman in sight flings herself on him. I think Duncan was consciously imitating a classic picaresque form where this sort of thing happens, but it got <i>so</i> irritating. (The only reason I think this is conscious in any way rather than just “because a lot of guys write that” is that I’ve read other books by him and it’s the sort of thing he’d do. That being said, ditto, it’s probably <i>also</i> because a lot of guys write that.) Anyway, it got increasingly boring and ridiculous. A lot of the women were doing it because they wanted some genetic diversity rather than because he was hot, but still. <br /><br />Finally, the whole book trailed out as it went along, ending in a fizzle. I was really grabbed by it when I started, but ended up putting it down for weeks at some point in the middle. Usually I read his books in one sitting (or two days, etc, depending on interruptions). <br /><br />Dave Duncan writes sf and fantasy which is pulpy in tone but often driven by genuinely original concepts which are very carefully thought out and then explored in all their implications. For instance, the “A Man of his Word” series has one of the more unique magic systems I’ve encountered in fantasy – it’s word-based magic, but the specific type is one I’ve never seen before or since – and rather than just rest on those laurels, Duncan proceeds to spend a lot of the series taking the concept to unexpected places. His books have plain prose and somewhat basic characterization, which is probably why no one ever mentions him when they’re talking about writers of ideas, but he really is one. He does tend to pop up in discussions of underrated writers, so there is that.<br /><br />Obviously, <i>West of January</i> is not one of his better books. It looks like an early work that was recently re-issued, so that might explain some things. I’m still pleased to have grabbed a bunch of his books for cheap and for Tool of Satan to have mailed me hard copies of others, and will report on them as I get to them. He’s a genuinely interesting writer and worth reading if you like his kind of thing, which at his best is quirky, surprisingly intelligent takes on pulp sf and fantasy tropes. I like that kind of thing. If you do too, I suggest <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J5X5G5C/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00J5X5G5C&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=ca45dd322520ca65f5e5336192b46ee4">The Cursed</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=am2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00J5X5G5C" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />, which has a very odd/cool take on curse-or-blessing (90% curse) powers in a medieval setting; there are some mild "dude wrote this" gender issues but on the other hand the protagonist is a pretty awesome middle-aged female innkeeper. For an epic fantasy series, <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J5X5EAO/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00J5X5EAO&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=35bcdd4f462b9a792d826f0ee582b878">Magic Casement (A Man of His Word Book 1)</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=am2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00J5X5EAO" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /> is also interesting/quirky, as is the "King's Swords" series (more small-scale, more fighting and politicking, less magic) and-- hey, this is 99 cents today!-- <a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00JVCHCZY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00JVCHCZY&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=54e768dbef1a5ce01b9f4e2142b1c233">The Reluctant Swordsman (The Seventh Sword Book 1)</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=am2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00JVCHCZY" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. I have not read the latter but I've been recced it frequently. Interesting premise for sure. <br /><br /><a target="_blank" href="https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00J2IK66O/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00J2IK66O&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=6bd45f23abc4539cda6061e643c85e4e">West of January</a><img src="//ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=am2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00J2IK66O" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1283087" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1283087.htmlgenre: science fictionauthor: duncan davepublic45http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1267036.htmlWed, 19 Oct 2016 10:42:14 GMTFarmer in the Sky, by Robert Heinleinhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1267036.html
A Heinlein juvenile about a family that joins a colony terraforming Ganymede. I read it as a kid, but didn’t remember much. Continuing my theme of surprise!grimdark, I thought it would be a charming tale of explorer spirit and space farming, and it turned out to be awesomely depressing despite a pasted on yay semi-upbeat conclusion. That is not the normal tone of a Heinlein juvenile, which could have dark aspects but were overall optimistic. It also has my least favorite of Heinlein’s juvenile heroes, Bill. He’s clearly meant to have flaws and learn to be better, but I really disliked him for a good 80% of the book. <br /><br />Bill, an Eagle Scout, lives with his father after their mother’s death in a glum dystopian Earth with food rationing and few opportunities. (It does have microwave dinners, though – good prediction, Heinlein!) Due to being bad tempered and insecure in that awful teenage way that manifests in constantly trying to prove himself and thinking he’s better than everyone, he doesn’t play well with others. Also, he despises girls and women. The misogyny is partly a sign of the times thing and partly a character trait that he’ll mostly get over, but it’s really grating.<br /><br />He begs his father to let him go be a colonist and farmer on Ganymede, and is pleased when his dad, after testing him to see if he’ll flip out if his father goes without him, tells him they’re going. But first he has to get married! Right now! To a woman Bill barely knows, with a daughter he’s never met before!<br /><br />You can see where Bill gets his interpersonal skills.<br /><br />Bill sulks, is mean to the daughter (Peggy, who is younger than him and clearly adores him), and refuses to go to the wedding. Nevertheless, they embark. The space voyage involves Bill running a scout troop, learning to be slightly less of a colossal jerkwad, and saving a bunch of lives by plugging a hole in the ship with his precious scout uniform after a meteorite strike. There are also multiple pages of math and physics explaining… stuff. I skipped those. <br /><br />At Ganymede, the colonists find that they have been victims of a bait and switch: the farms they were promised are not available and won’t be for years, and the existing colonists don’t want them. It’s hard or impossible to go back, and conditions suck. Poor Peggy can’t adjust to the low air pressure and has to be lodged in a special pressurized room for as long as they’re there. This is super depressing, but the gloom lets up a bit when Bill sharecrops for a nice family who has successfully farmed, and the family eventually gets a farm of their own though Peggy is still stuck in her room and can only leave it in a bubble stretcher.<br /><br />The farming part is unusual. Due to the expense of transporting mass, there’s very little equipment and farmers need to pulverize rock into dust, then mix it with bacteria to create dirt. It’s backbreaking labor, and that’s most of the farming we see. I was a disappointed, as I wanted more “Little House on Ganymede” details, Bill learning about cows when he’s never seen one before, etc, but most of what we get is pulverizing rock.<br /><br />And then! Depressing spoilers! <span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1267036.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1267036" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1267036.htmlgenre: science fictionapocalypse: natural disasterauthor: heinlein robertgenre: young adultpublic43http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1232338.htmlFri, 15 Jan 2016 22:32:50 GMTCold Fire, by Dean Koontzhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1232338.html
Koontz tends to write books with absolutely killer hooks and intros, but is much more uneven about middles and conclusions that live up to them. I am still annoyed that <i>The Bad Place</i>, which has the wonderful premise of a contemporary man who travels to an unknown planet or land in his sleep, sometimes bringing back riches and sometimes terrors, proceeded to an only barely related plot about detectives and genetic engineering rather than exploring the super-cool actual premise. This book also has a killer hook, and also proceeds to go in an unusual direction with it, but one which I found much more satisfying and surprising. <br /><br />Jim Ironheart gets psychic commands to go save people, but doesn’t know who they’ll be or why they’re in danger until he gets there, and he never knows why that person rather than some other, out of all the people who are in danger every day. Reporter Holly Thorne finds out about him and, fascinated, approaches him to find out what the hell is going on. The two of them are attracted, but the romance takes second place to the mystery of who’s commanding Jim and why… and why they both are having terrifying nightmares that start manifesting in reality. <br /><br />This is a really gripping, creepy book. It has horror elements, but it’s not really a horror novel. It’s more of a cross-genre thriller. And that’s all I can say without huge spoilers. <span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1232338.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0425199584/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0425199584&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=62M5YEDBUOB7GUDT">Cold Fire</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0425199584" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1232338" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1232338.htmlgenre: science fictiongenre: horrorgenre: mysterypublic7http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1231552.htmlThu, 14 Jan 2016 19:16:21 GMTPlanet of Exile, by Ursula K. Le Guinhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1231552.html
Another re-read of an early, novella-length book, this one much more firmly science fiction than the science fantasy of <i>Rocannon’s World</i>. I prefer the later, but then again, I really like science fantasy. In this book, technologically advanced humans settled on a planet already inhabited by “hilfs” (very nearly human people, but less advanced and not able to breed with humans), briefly, they thought, as refugees in an intergalactic war. No one ever came to pick them up. Generations later, they live in an uneasy coexistence with the hilfs they look down upon, a semi-isolated colony slowly losing its superior technology due to lack of infrastructure and people who understand how to use it. <br /><br />The heroine is Rolery, a hilf girl who falls in love with a human man, Jacob Agat, and so comes to learn both about human culture and about the likely future of humans and hilfs; the reader understands more than she does, but not a lot more. Rolery is a very real-feeling character, unlearned but not stupid. Agat is more generic. The romance is really there to enable us to see humans through an alien’s eyes, and vice versa; the story is much more about culture clashes than about a love that transcends them. It’s extremely atmospheric, with long winters and creepy snow wraiths. The closing revelation about the future of the world feels inevitable in retrospect, but powerful as a conclusion: a disaster to some, but hope and a future for others, depending entirely upon their point of view. <br /><br />I recall Le Guin discussing this book as an attempt to write a protagonist who changed the world without taking the sorts of action a traditional protagonist of sf at the time would take. I assume that at the time, sf heroes were mostly either solving scientific problems or fighting, because Rolery's main action is both active and common in a different genre - she chooses a man despite disapproval from both humans and hilts. (She actually takes quite a bit of action apart from that, but that's the one from which all else follows.) <br /><br />But that action doesn’t change the world so much as it illuminates something that was already going on, and would have happened even if she and Agat had never met. <lj-spoiler> The Terrans' belief that they don't belong, are an island of civilization on a primitive planet, and should have nothing to do with the hilfs is driven and supported by their actual physical differences: they can't eat the food without taking digestive enzymes with it, they can't interbreed, they're telepathic with each other but not with the hilfs, and they can't be infected by native bacteria. But the Terrans have been slowly adjusting to the planet over generations, and some hilfs can, in fact, be telepathic. Rolery and Agat can mindspeak to each other, and Rolery recognizes that a Terran is dying of an infected wound. (And very possibly saves Agat by cleaning out a minor wound of his, which Terrans normally wouldn't bother to do.) <br /><br />Rolery is the first to point out the change, though it takes a Terran to understand its implications. But she didn't cause it. Presumably someone else would have eventually figured it out if she hadn't, though it might have taken a while; the Terrans had already noticed some of the changes, but ignored or discounted them because they wanted to hold themselves separate, and didn't want to believe that they were not so different from the "primitive" hilfs.</lj-spoiler><br /><br />Rolery isn’t particularly an unconventional heroine in terms of her actions, from a current perspective – she falls in love and chooses a forbidden mate, and becomes a bridge between cultures – but the world does feel very different seen through her eyes. To me, it’s her perspective rather than her action that’s unusual and interesting. <br /><br /><a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0312862113/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0312862113&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=P4AO5FYJE3T5OVFX">Worlds of Exile and Illusion: Three Complete Novels of the Hainish Series in One Volume--Rocannon's World; Planet of Exile; City of Illusions</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0312862113" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1231552" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1231552.htmlauthor: le guin ursula kgenre: science fictionpublic8http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1229097.htmlFri, 08 Jan 2016 10:33:14 GMTRocannon’s World, by Ursula K. Le Guinhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1229097.html
This is a re-read. I’ve read this book multiple times. It’s one of Le Guin’s earliest works, novella-length and an expansion/continuation of a haunting short story, “Semley’s Necklace,” which is a science fiction version of a very ancient folkloric theme, the human visitor to Faerie who returns to find that during their brief sojourn, years have passed, their spouse is old or dead, and their children have grown. In Le Guin’s version, Faerie is another world and the time change is due to faster than light travel.<br /><br />Rocannon is a scientist who gets stranded on a less technologically advanced world; there’s a loose plot involving him trying to communicate with his people on his own world and getting involved in a war on the world he’s on, but it’s mostly a picaresque about exploring a new world. The plot is not the point. (Nor is Rocannon himself, who is a blank slate and really exists as a body for the reader to inhabit.) The point is a series of beautiful or terrifying or strange encounters: the windsteeds, which are giant cats with wings; the city of angels and its shift from awe to horror as Rocannon realizes that beauty does not mean intelligence; the small furry creatures that rescue and guide him; his ordeal by fire, with echoes of the phoenix and Odin upon the tree. It doesn’t hang together particularly well as a smooth, continuous narrative, but then again, the picaresque is a perfectly legitimate form that just happens to not be much respected now. <br /><br /><i>Rocannon’s World</i> is one of those books whose flaws are what make it wonderful. Le Guin has written about how it was written while she was still finding her voice and working out the rules of her universe; she points out that Rocannon’s impermasuit, which protects him from physical harm, was a clunky attempt to transfer magical armor into a science fiction setting, and ought to have suffocated him. No such thing exists in her later books. She’s correct that it is something of an awkward marriage between myth and science, and yet it creates the stunning scene in which he’s captured and burned alive, forced to stand unharmed but helpless within the flames, and finally emerges from the ashes, takes off the suit which, once off his body, appears to be nothing more than a handful of plastic and wires, and bathes naked in the river, trying to wash away the memory of flames licking at his eyes. How marvelous is that! We are lucky to have the book that Le Guin didn’t get quite right, that didn’t do what she wanted it to do. If it had been more perfect, it might well have ben less memorable. <br /><br />This is the edition I have: <a rel="nofollow" href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0007ERCIC/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B0007ERCIC&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=FEQ356DZ4B45IEZU">Rocannon's World</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B0007ERCIC" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. I have to say, I really love that cover. What could possibly be better than a dude in a cape and armor, carrying a torch and riding a giant flying cat in a surprisingly practical-looking harness?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1229097" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1229097.htmlgenre: science fictionauthor: le guin ursula kpublic25http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1228270.htmlMon, 04 Jan 2016 21:32:42 GMTThe Philosopher Kings, by Jo Waltonhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1228270.html
This book will make no sense if you have not read <i>The Just City</i>. Read that first. (I reviewed it; click on the author name tag.) Though the plot is completely different, I would say that if you liked the first book, you will like the second, and if you didn’t like the first, you won’t like the second. Though I did miss the robots. And also several of my favorite characters from the first book. <br /><br />Since I read this six months ago, I am not going to recap the plot, which is incredibly spoilery anyway. However, feel free to put spoilers in comments. <br /><br />Like <i>The Just City, The Philosopher Kings</i> is a novel of ideas populated by painfully human (and some endearingly or terrifyingly inhuman) characters. There was some discussion as to whether the first book made sense as something that human beings would do, even with Godly assistance. I thought that it absolutely rang true as a portrayal of a bunch of single-minded fanatics who get together to run things their way. In other words, a cult. Of course, that is an outsider’s insulting term. An insider would call it a planned community. A true believer would call it a utopia. <br /><br />I grew up in one of those. The details were totally different, but in many ways the atmosphere was very much the same. I was Matthias, taken from my home at a young age and given a name and identity I never accepted. The moment I got the chance, I snatched another name, one that I felt was true, fled, and began doing what I felt was right, which was basically the opposite of everything I’d been indoctrinated into. Sounds good, right? After all, cults are bad, right? <br /><br />Well… It worked out for me. I had my own values that I picked up elsewhere, and hung on to for dear life, fixing them more and more into the core of my self at every daily attempt to teach me to believe in something else. I like my values and they suit me, but they are odd values for an American civilian (and have caused quite a lot of conflict in my life when I forget that I am the only person in the room who has them.) “I cannot die until my king has safely reached the fort.” "Service before self." “Duty, honour, courage.” <br /><br />(On that note, thank you very much, Shivaji, Tanaji, Jijabai, Baji Prabhu, Rani Lakshmibai, for inspiration that lived on hundreds of years beyond your deaths. And thank you even more to the Base Commander of the Ahmednagar Army Base and every single person I ever interacted with who was in or working for the Indian army at Ahmednagar. You were the only people who were consistently kind to me, often going well out of your way or bending rules to do so, and that was <i>so</i> consistent that "protect helpless children whether they're citizens or not" must have been knocked into your heads at boot camp. It is an excellent ideal and I am not surprised that I extrapolated it to "ALL these people's ideals are excellent." In fact, I still think they're excellent and had I been Indian myself, I might well have joined the Army. (To be clear: I think the <i>ideals</i> are excellent. No comment on specific military actions, many of which directly contradict the stated ideals.)<br /><br />But that was me. If I had decided to take my values from the Catholic school I attended, or from Indira Gandhi, or from Georgette Heyer, or from Kurt Vonnegut, or from any of the other thousands of possible influences on me other than the ones I was actually there to learn, I would have done very different things with my life. Being wronged does not always teach you justice. Having a just cause does not necessarily make your actions just. <br /><br />As I said in my review of the first novel, you cannot make any sense of this book without the idea that depiction does not equal advocacy. I do know Jo a bit, though not well, but certainly well enough to know that she is not an advocate of rape, slavery, infanticide, torture, colonialism, kidnapping, or any of the other absolutely horrifying things presented in the novel and advocated quite persuasively, or else excused and minimized, by otherwise sympathetic characters. <br /><br />I expect that there are ideas in the book that Jo does agree with, because there are a <i>lot</i> of ideas in the book, but I don’t know what they are and hesitate to guess, with one exception. I think Jo probably really would like to go back into the past and rescue lost or destroyed works of art, if it could be done without creating some kind of catastrophic butterfly effect. I would too. I think anyone sensitive to art would, unless they are very, very devoted to mono no aware and evanescent art; ice sculptors, perhaps, or tenders of cherry trees. <br /><br />But despite the patent impossibility of the book advocating everything it’s depicting, it does feel like a book that’s advocating <i>something</i>, partly because the characters are all very passionately advocating things (often completely opposed things), and partly because most thought experiment novels are indeed advocating something and in fact were written for that purpose. But if it’s advocating something, what in the world is it advocating? <br /><br />I think it’s advocating that you think about the ideas presented and draw your own conclusions. Very consistently, characters who are otherwise good or worthy or admirable people have horrific ideas and do horrifying things. Characters with extremely justifiable grievances are not necessarily nice people; characters who deserve to have bad things happen to them meet fates so far beyond what they deserve that that the reader feels guilty for wishing anything ill on them at all; characters who are charming and talented yet not good at all are exalted for their skills rather than for their moral character; Gods have extraordinary powers, but they are no more moral or ethical or right than any given human. <br /><br />This is all very deliberate. It makes it impossible for the reader to draw the easy conclusion that good people do good things, bad people do bad things, and the morality of an action is determined by who does it, not by the action itself. The latter is a very common cognitive error that is enormously destructive on both small and worldwide scales. “My country, right or wrong.” “Priests are good and holy, so anything a priest does is good and holy.” “That woman is a liar and a con artist; why should I believe anything she says?” “That man is a war hero; who better to hold public office?”<br /><br />I don’t know if that’s what I was meant to take from the book, which seems to be written as a mirror distorted just enough to make you really examine what you already believe. But it’s what I do take from it. <br /><br />When I sat down to think about the book, I came to the conclusion, which had not occurred to me before, that I probably would have enlisted in the Indian army had I had similar encounters with them if I'd been an Indian citizen. In other words: I don't, in fact, have an essential problem with belonging to a cult/planned community/very formalized in-group. I just didn't like the one I was actually in. I think this shows how <i>The Philosopher Kings</i> is a genuinely thought-provoking book. <br /><br />Also: absolutely killer ending. It was perfect and logical, yet completely unexpected. I can’t wait to read the next book.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1228270" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1228270.htmlgenre: science fictiongenre: fantasyauthor: walton jopublic14http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1188209.htmlTue, 26 May 2015 16:45:32 GMTTomorrowlandhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1188209.html
I was on vacation, and the one movie theatre in town had only two options. It was this, or <i>Pitch Perfect 2</i>. I have not seen <i>Pitch Perfect 1.</i> Also, I like George Clooney. <i>Tomorrowland</i> it was!<br /><br />Oops. <br /><br />If one of those old-school sf fans who keeps trying to make teenagers read Heinlein juveniles was hired to make a big-budget movie as propaganda for optimism, they might well have created <i>Tomorrowland.</i><br /><br />The plot, as best as I can summarize it without too many spoilers, is that a little boy tries to build a jetpack in 1964. He is encouraged by a mysterious little girl, Athena, who tells him to hope and keep trying and to believe in optimism and the future. Then the movie jumps ahead to Casey, a genius teenage girl who believes in hope and trying and optimism and the future. We know this because most of her dialogue early on consists of stuff like, “Keep trying! You can’t give up hope! Believe in the future! Cynicism is bad! Optimism is good!”<br /><br />Then she gets a magic button that transports her to a cool future straight out of <i>Analog</i> circa 1950. (In one of the few actual cool bits in the movie, her physical self and surroundings in the current world continue to affect her self in the future; when she moves, both her selves move, so if she walks into the wall of her present-day house, she smacks into an invisible barrier in the future. Sadly, not much is made of this.)<br /><br />And then she meets Athena, who proceeds to direct her on a plot coupon collecting adventure. There are random killer robots. And also George Clooney, the idealistic little boy, now grown up and bitter. Casey lectures him on optimism, in case you missed her speech the first time. But even if you missed it the first two times, it’s okay; she gives it about six more times. And if you miss those, you still won’t miss the speech, because other characters give it too. Repeatedly.<br /><br />I liked the girl who played Athena. She had a surprising amount of technical skill. I did not like the girl who played Casey, but I think that was at least as much the fault of the script as the actress. Clooney had the advantage of playing the bitter guy, which meant he had the least number of paens to optimism. <br /><br />I appreciated the message – you can change the world, but first you have to believe that change is possible; optimism is not stupidity and despair is not wisdom; the future might be pretty cool – but I did not appreciate that about 50% of the total dialogue consisted of explicitly stating the message. After about the twentieth time some character robotically recites something like, “Optimism is good! Despair is bad! Believe in a bright future!” I started feeling like I was in the Brave New World. Which is not at all what was intended. <br /><br />Also, considering that the entire movie was about the idea that the future is cool… the future was not actually that cool. It had robots, jet packs, floating swimming pools, and floating trains. The swimming pools were neat, but by now kids have seen lots of movies depicting cool futures, and pretty much all of them have a more comprehensive and appealing vision of future coolness than “things that float.”<br /><br />And also, the future was not actually the future. It was a pocket dimension. I think. It was explained several times, collecting additional plot holes and confusingness with each iteration.<br /><br />This was by no means the worst movie I’ve ever seen. It had some good bits. And it was at least bad in a different way than big-budget kids’ movies are usually bad. I normally find Disney movies highly competent but slick. This was not slick. It was a hot mess. I suspect that there was so much interference from so many people, many of them probably trying to make sure the audience could follow it, that it ended up simultaneously convoluted and simplistic, over-explained and confusing. And while it was not the worst movie I’ve ever seen, it is very possibly the most anvillicious.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1188209" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1188209.htmlgenre: and now i preach at yougenre: science fictionmoviespublic29http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1185927.htmlSat, 11 Apr 2015 21:19:43 GMTBook Round-Up: Aldiss, Brockmannhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1185927.html
<i>Helliconia Spring</i>, by Brian Aldiss. Science fiction classic with amazing worldbuilding, in a world where each season lasts for hundreds of years. Also relentlessly gross and grim, with characters who didn't engage me at all. Gave up. <br /><br />Yet I feel strangely cheered that a brilliant man like Brian Aldiss can commit a sentence - not meant to be funny - like <i>Something in his hollow belly went </i>whang<i> at the thought.</i><br /><br />Even the best of us sometimes write "Something went <i>whang.</i>"<br /><br /><i>Into the Night</i>, by Suzanne Brockmann. I had somehow missed reading this installment of her Troubleshooters Navy SEALs series. Sadly, it was the worst one. Mike Muldoon has no personality - he's young, hot, likes older women, and... uh... that's basically it. White House staffer Joan DaCosta is incredibly annoying. There are stupid misunderstandings galore, plus yet another ridiculous romantic obstacle impossible to take seriously: Horrors! This completely perfect man is younger than me! Also, virtually nothing happens in the entire book. <br /><br />The subplots were way more interesting, but the WWII one (which I liked a lot) had little page time, and the doomed romance between Mary Lou and the sweet Arab guy ended incredibly depressingly, with him probably dying of injuries sustained in the action climax and everyone falsely believing that he was a terrorist. I wonder if this is resolved in a later book, and I just don't remember it because I didn't have the context that would have made it seem relevant. (I remember what happened to Mary Lou; I mean what happened to Ibrahim Rahman.)<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1185927" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1185927.htmlauthor: brockmann suzannegenre: romancegenre: science fictionpublic20http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1183343.htmlMon, 16 Mar 2015 23:35:39 GMTThe Cloud Roads, by Martha Wellshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1183343.html
A science fiction novel in an unusual subgenre: the main characters aren't human, and don't have human bodies. There are only a handful of these, mostly written by C. J. Cherryh, but I almost always enjoy them. It's surprising how rare it is to write solely or primarily from the POV of an alien. <br /><br />I'm clarifying "don't have human bodies" because there's a lot of books that are technically from alien POVs but the aliens are physically identical to humans except for maybe having green blood or pointy ears. The effect of those books is quite different from those in which all the characters are giant cats. <br /><br />In a world full of many non-human races, Moon is a lonely orphan shapeshifter, hiding his true nature amongst various non-shapeshifting people lest he be mistaken for the only shapeshifting race he's heard of, the predatory Fell. After he's unveiled and nearly killed, he meets one of his own kind for the first time since childhood, and learns that he is a Raksura, a member of the generally non-evil shapeshifting race. <br /><br />"Won't you come back to your people? They'll all be delighted to meet you!" Needless to say, things don't go quite that smoothly.<br /><br />I enjoyed the alien world of the Raksura, with their communal social organization, and I am a sucker for stories of lonely people finding a home, especially if they have no social skills and are basically feral. So I liked those aspects of the book. Minuses were flat prose that produced an unintended emotional distance, and that I dislike inherently evil races. The latter was, unfortunately, a major feature of the book. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1597802166/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1597802166&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=SPAURJXIIWTH4PDT">The Cloud Roads (The Books of the Raksura)</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1597802166" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1183343" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1183343.htmlbody parts: wounded wingsgenre: science fictionpublic15http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1168173.htmlTue, 09 Dec 2014 18:45:10 GMTSanta Olivia, by Jacqueline Careyhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1168173.html
Given that this is about a lesbian Latina boxer who is genetically unable to feel fear, I have no idea why it took me so long to get to it. It is not only exactly up my alley, but is very well-written, gripping, moving, sometimes funny, sometimes sexy, and probably of wide appeal even to people who don’t find that premise instantly charming. <br /><br />In the not-quite-post-apocalyptic near future, the town of Santa Olivia has been cordoned off as part of a gigantic effort to seal the border between the US and Mexico. The inhabitants of the town, mostly poor and Latino/a, are stuck there, subject to the American military base on site but with no recourse from the government of either country. However, it’s not an orderly dystopia, but a poor and somewhat lawless town where people live their lives and have relationships and sports and happy times, even though conditions are hard and unjust. <br /><br />Speaking of sports. The American military commander loves boxing. Once a year, a match is held between an Olympic-level boxer he brings in, and whatever man from Santa Olivia wants to face him. If the latter can win, he gets a ticket out of town. Needless to say, this creates a thriving boxing subculture, jumping at the prize that’s perpetually just out of reach. <br /><br />But all this is prologue. The story concerns a young woman from Santa Olivia who falls in love with a fugitive from Haiti… a man who was experimented on and genetically engineered. Urban legend calls those men werewolves, but they can’t shapeshift. However, they’re stronger, faster, and unable to feel fear. He’s on the run and soon leaves… but not before fathering a little girl, whom he playfully names Loup. <br /><br />The bulk of the story is about Loup growing up, mostly in an orphanage. Being unable to fear gives her an odd emotional tenor, not quite autism spectrum but similar. She seems strange to other people, and in her circumstances, being unable to fear means that she needs to hide herself lest she attract unwanted attention. But while she puts off some people, she intrigues others, and soon she’s at the heart of a little band of orphanage kids. <br /><br />Loup may not feel fear, but she knows injustice when she sees it, and there’s a lot around. There’s also a local legend of a child saint, Santa Olivia, depicted as a little girl in a blue dress. Loup and her friends take on the role of Santa Olivia, stealth dispenser of justice. (In one hilarious scene, she creates a rain of live snakes.) And then there’s that boxing match…<br /><br />I loved this book. The town and its people feel incredibly real, making unpredictable choices in the way that actual human beings do. The power dynamics, both social and individual, were also strikingly realistic. The relationships were wonderful, from Loup’s childhood buddies to her first romance to (my favorite) her relationship with an arrogant asshole male boxer who goes from being an enemy to a sparring partner to an unexpected friend.<br /><br />This is written in a completely different style and tone from Carey’s Kushiel’s Dart books, so if you didn’t like those, you may well like <i>Santa Olivia</i>. If you did like those, you may also like <i>Santa Olivia</i>. There’s a sequel, but the story feels complete within the book.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003P2VDHY/ref=as_li_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B003P2VDHY&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20&amp;linkId=LLYF35EPF2LJFLTS">Santa Olivia</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B003P2VDHY" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1168173" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1168173.htmlgenre: science fictionauthor: carey jacquelinelgbtqpublic28http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1163328.htmlFri, 26 Sep 2014 20:05:35 GMTStrange and interesting sf now available for e-readers!http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1163328.html
<a href="http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&amp;field-author=Doris%20Piserchia&amp;search-alias=digital-text&amp;sort=relevancerank">Six of Doris Piserchia's sf novels are now on Kindle for $3.99.</a> (You'd think Hachette could afford to give them covers.) Piserchia is one of those writers who would probably be more famous if she had been male, or written under a male pseudonym. Then she might have been considered ground-breaking and innovative, rather than merely weird. Her books are wild space adventures with a distinctly hallucinatory atmosphere, often starring young women who go for what they want, whether it's sex or adventure, with no regard whatsoever for the proper place of women or what others might think of them. Sadly, that attitude is <i>still</i> rare. <br /><br />Typical summary (minus female protagonist): <i>It all began when someone tried to push Creed into the flesh pool to be ingested. The assassination failed, but Creed was never the same again. Because it launched the new cliff-dwellers of Creed's colony onto a new course of life - which could lead to humanity's re-emergence as Earth's masters. <br /><br />In those far future days, Earth's masters were two trees. Not trees as we know them, but two Everest-high growths, whose sentient roots and fast-growing branches dominated every living thing on the world. Men lived between their arboreal combat.</i><br /><br />A few quotes from Goodreads: <br /><br />Levi: Pretty much as bizarre as I remember. I think another reviewer called Piserchia's work dreamlike, and I'm going to second that description. The kind of dream where everything is extraordinarily complex but it all makes perfect sense at the time and it's only when you try to describe it later that you realize you don't quite know where to start.<br /><br />Vroom: Still delightful, decades later. I remain convinced Piserchia was either heavily medicated or using recreational pharmaceuticals when writing this. My favorite of her writing.<br /><br />I remember enjoying <i>Spaceling</i> and <i>Star Rider</i>. <br /><br />My next mention is not a rec per se given that I have not yet had a chance to read it, and it is less easy to obtain than one might expect from an e-book. But this is the sort of thing that I bet a small but select few of you might really, really like. <br /><br />Graydon Saunders was one of the most interesting posters on rec.arts.sf.written and .composition back in the Usenet Cretaceous Period. Every now and then, he would post excerpts of his fiction. It was completely obvious to me that he was a very good writer, and also that he was way too strange of a writer to ever be published by a major publishing house. His excerpts, which were always quite evocative and beautiful, tended to read as if they were written from an alternate dimension in which fantasy had taken a completely different direction than it did in our world, and the ur-influences were not Tolkien and Lewis, but <i>Beowulf, Njal's Saga,</i> and "Uncleftish Beholding." <br /><br />He finally self-published his book. Here it is! <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/21801573-the-march-north?from_search=true">The March North, by Graydon Saunders</a> Read <a href="https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/949140615?book_show_action=false&amp;page=1">the comments to this review</a> for an explanation of how to obtain it. I'm sure Graydon would send a copy if you ask. <br /><br />ETA: Explanation of how to purchase it is now in the comments of the LJ entry.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1163328" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1163328.htmlgenre: science fictionpublic36http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1124504.htmlFri, 15 Nov 2013 19:05:03 GMTThe Bitter Kingdom, by Rae Carsonhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1124504.html
The first two books in this series were easy to describe. In a Spain-esque fantasy land, a baby princess, Elisa, has a magical rock materialize in her belly-button. This marks her as chosen by God to fulfill some special but unknown mission. She grows up feeling unworthy, but is plunged into adventure and political machinations and grows up a lot, eventually coming to master her magical powers, learn to be a competent ruler, and come to a greater understanding of the world.<br /><br />By the end of the second book, a number of intriguing revelations and plot twists alter the premises set up above, making a detailed description of book three highly spoilery. Specific notes go beneath the cut; spoilers will appear in comments. <br /><br />Overall, I enjoyed this trilogy a lot. The world is vivid and intriguing, despite some jarring errors. (It was the one with the jerboa filets and the vomiting horses. On that note, warning for animal harm (poisoning horses for strategic purposes) and Scorpions of Unusual Size.) Actually, the fact that Carson did any worldbuilding at all unfortunately made the errors and blank spaces stand out more. <br /><br />It has interesting characters and excellent narrative drive, and uses God or something which the characters believe is God in a non-obnoxious manner – that is, no “Come to Jesus,” no “religious people are morons,” and no “Surprise twist - God is a computer!” <br /><br />The three books feel very different from each other, even though they end up telling a single complete story. The first book is primarily about character growth via a fish out of water narrative, the second book is about learning to rule and expanding the world, and the third book is a classic quest narrative and also about the costs and moral compromises involved in being a ruler. As a whole, the trilogy touches on all those aspects, but character growth most of all. The Elisa of the first book is a completely different person by the end of the trilogy. <br /><br />My biggest problem with the final novel is that by the end of the second book, I was primarily interested in the world and how it had come to be. By the end of the third book, a few questions were answered and more were implied, but a whole bunch of the most intriguing questions were never addressed. <br /><br />As if Carson knew exactly what I was thinking, on literally the last page Elisa rattles off a list of questions which she says are still unknown. I guess I’m glad that Carson noticed that she’d raised a lot of intriguing issues that were never addressed, but I would have liked to have her actually address them. Especially since I was more interested in the worldbuilding than in the political maneuvering which took up the final third of the book.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0062026542/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0062026542&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">The Bitter Kingdom (Girl of Fire and Thorns)</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0062026542" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1124504.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1124504" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1124504.htmlauthor: carson raegenre: science fictiongenre: fantasygenre: young adultpublic13http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1124189.htmlWed, 13 Nov 2013 00:51:58 GMTInheritance, by Malinda Lohttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1124189.html
This is the sequel to Malinda Lo’s <i>Adaptation</i>. The entire premise of <i>Inheritance</i> is a spoiler for <i>Adaptation</i>, so all I will say outside of the cut is that I enjoyed the sequel. Below the cut are huge spoilers for both books. <br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1124189.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0316198005/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0316198005&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Inheritance</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0316198005" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1124189" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1124189.htmlauthor: lo malindagenre: science fictiongenre: young adultpublic1http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1123346.htmlFri, 08 Nov 2013 20:56:42 GMTNatural Selection, by Malinda Lohttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1123346.html
Lo’s <i>Adaptation</i> starts out with a small-scale threatened apocalypse by birds, and turns into an <i>X-Files</i> episode starring a bisexual teenage girl in San Francisco. I liked it a lot, and that’s all I can say without spoilers.<br /><br />“Natural Selection,” a novella, is set after <i>Adaptation</i> and before its sequel, <i>Inheritance.</i> “Natural Selection” can be read independently of either book, but is hugely spoilery for <i>Adaptation.</i> I liked it a lot, but that’s all I can say about it without spoilers. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00C4W7GDG/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00C4W7GDG&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Natural Selection</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00C4W7GDG" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. Only $1.99!<br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1123346.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1123346" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1123346.htmlauthor: lo malindagenre: young adultgenre: science fictionpublic4http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1123103.htmlThu, 07 Nov 2013 21:45:11 GMTThe Summer Prince, by Alaya Dawn Johnsonhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1123103.html
In a post-apocalyptic Brazil ruled by a council of Aunties, a teenage Summer King is elected once a year. For one year, he is famous, feted, and given anything he wants, not to mention having a limited amount of actual power. At the end of the year, he is ceremonially executed. <br /><br />There is an in-story reason for this which readers may or may not find plausible, but I do find it completely believable that a fair number of teenagers would compete to be king for a year: live fast, die young, and leave a good-looking corpse. In fact, one of the most notable aspects of the novel was how convincingly <i>teenage</i> the teenagers are: idealistic and self-centered, impulsive and passionate, equally and alternately obsessed with sex and death, fashion trends and the meaning of art, hot celebrities and best friends. <br /><br />June is a teenage graffiti artist whose best friend, Gil, falls for Enki, the glamorous, newly elected Summer King. Reluctantly, because she doesn’t want to screw up her friendship, she also develops a crush on the beautiful and doomed Enki. It turns out that June and Enki have quite a bit in common, and begin collaborating on dangerous, radical, guerilla art projects!<br /><br />This novel has gotten a lot of positive press, but the rave reviews I read for it actually put me off reading it. The book was so highly praised for its politics that I got the impression that it was nothing but politics: worthy but dull, as if it should be consumed solely for its nutritional value. I didn’t read it until I was on the plane for Sirens, where Alaya was a Guest of Honor. So I was pleasantly surprised by how completely enthralled I was — and by how fun and even id-tastic it was!<br /><br />Regarding id-tastic, let’s start with Enki, the object of desire. He is beautiful and doomed. He’s self-destructive, hot, a revolutionary, a dancer, and a king. He has connected himself to the city via illegal nanotech, so if something goes wrong with the city, he feels its pain and dramatically faints. If this is the sort of thing you like – and I am not ashamed to say that is the sort of thing I like – you will like this book. <br /><br />The future!Brazil setting is vivid, the science fiction details are cool, there’s lots of sense of wonder, the love triangle didn’t make me want to tear my hair out, the plot moves fast, the characters are genuinely diverse, the hero has his nervous system wired into the city, and the heroine is a guerilla graffiti artist. <br /><br />It’s got dark and serious aspects, but overall, it’s fun to read. This is not an “eat your broccoli” book. It’s a fruit tart with real fruit (so you’ll get your vitamin C) but the crust is made with butter, and there’s whipped cream on top. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0545417791/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0545417791&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">The Summer Prince</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0545417791" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1123103" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1123103.htmlauthor: johnson alayagenre: young adultgenre: science fictionpublic19http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1113710.htmlTue, 20 Aug 2013 20:54:52 GMTBook miscellaneahttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1113710.html
Sherwood Smith has a new book out, <i>Lhind the Thief</i>. I haven't read it yet, but she says it contains "disguises, flying, swashbuckling on land and sea, tree-houses, secrets, telepathy, magical powers and spells, food, good-looking villains as well as heroes, and even some romance." You can buy it for $4.50 at Amazon (<a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00EMZN4LG/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00EMZN4LG&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Lhind the Thief</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00EMZN4LG" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />) or at Book View Cafe, where the authors get 95% of the money (<a href="http://bookviewcafe.com/bookstore/book/lhind-the-thief/">Lhind the Thief</a>). That is my hand on the cover, attempting to launch a new career as a hand model. <br /><br />Melinda Lo's delicious YA science fiction thriller <i>Adaptation</i> - think <i>X-Files</i> with a teenage bisexual heroine-- is a Kindle daily deal at $2.99. Do not click on the links for her upcoming sequel or on her upcoming promotional novella unless you want to get spoiled for everything! However, if you click on my author tag for her, you will be linked to a review with the spoiler-cut intact. <a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0076DDFQ0/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B0076DDFQ0&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Adaptation</a><img src="http://ir-na.amazon-adsystem.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B0076DDFQ0" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />.<br /><br />Read anything good lately?<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1113710" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1113710.htmlauthor: smith sherwoodauthor: lo malindagenre: young adultgenre: fantasygenre: science fictionpublic14http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1110417.htmlFri, 21 Jun 2013 00:14:10 GMTLiving in Threes, by Judith Tarrhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1110417.html
My quest to read more self-published books is mostly demonstrating to me that there is often no difference in quality between them and traditionally published books. In fact, in certain genres, it is much easier to find more ambitious or unusual books, of equal literary quality, in self-publishing.<br /><br />I am tempted to say that this middle-grade book is more ambitious than most, but recently middle-grade seems to be getting more ambitious, while YA, overall, is getting less so.<br /><br />It's divided into three timelines, which bleed into each other from fairly early on. In modern times, American Meredith is sent away from her beloved pregnant Lipizzan horse and her mother, who is recovering from cancer, to accompany her archaelogist aunt on a dig in Egypt. In ancient Egypt, Meritre, a singer in the temple of Amon, worries about her pregnant mother and the pharoah's daughter, who is sick with a mysterious plague. And in a cyberpunk future that has cured most diseases, Meru pursues her missing mother into a secret quarantine zone.<br /><br />This novel reminded me of a childhood favorite, Mary Stolz's <i>Cat in the Mirror</i>, which also contrasted dual timelines, of the same soul reincarnated in ancient Egypt and modern New York. Tarr's book is more complex and ambitious. The three timelines are not merely compared and contrasted and paralleled, but directly affect each other. <br /><br />The book starts a little slow, probably due to having to set up three plot lines rather than one, but becomes quite a page-turner by about the one-third mark. The themes are grief, times changing and times staying the same, the inevitability of death, and the equal inevitability of life going on: reincarnation, and birth, and life itself. <br /><br />Satisfying and complex. I especially liked the pets of the three girls: a horse, a cat, and a half-insubstantial alien creature.<br /><br />Note: The author is a friend, so I'm probably not that objective.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00AG27XJ8/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00AG27XJ8&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Living in Threes</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00AG27XJ8" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1110417" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1110417.htmlgenre: childrensgenre: science fictiongenre: horsesgenre: self-publishedauthor: tarr judithpublic23http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1105662.htmlTue, 23 Apr 2013 22:14:50 GMTQuicksilver, by R. J. Andersonhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1105662.html
This is a very difficult book to review. It's a sequel to Anderson's <i>Ultraviolet</i>, which had some nice twists. Though the cover copy suggests that <i>Quicksilver</i> can be read on its own, it spoils every plot twist in <i>Ultraviolet</i>, starting from the very first page. (I also think it would be pretty difficult to follow without having read <i>Ultraviolet</i> first. In fact, I found some plot points difficult to follow because it had been so long since I had read <i>Ultraviolet</i>.) <br /><br />They're both good books. But if you have any interest in reading either, start with <i>Ultraviolet</i> and don't even read the premise of <i>Quicksilver</i> - literally everything about it is a spoiler for <i>Ultraviolet.</i><br /><br />I am going to do two levels of spoiler cuts. The first level will be spoilery for <i>Ultraviolet</i>, the second for <i>Quicksilver</i>.<br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1105662.html#cutid1">giant Ultraviolet spoilers</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___2" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1105662.html#cutid2">giant Quicksilver spoilers</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___2" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B005R9EEVK/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B005R9EEVK&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Ultraviolet</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B005R9EEVK" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00ARMXNAU/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B00ARMXNAU&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Quicksilver</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B00ARMXNAU" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1105662" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1105662.htmllgbtqgenre: young adultgenre: science fictionauthor: anderson r jpublic7http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1102810.htmlTue, 26 Mar 2013 20:16:51 GMTFair Coin, by E. C. Myershttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1102810.html
Clever YA sf in the old-school vein of "work through all the implications of a premise."<br /><br />Teenage Ephraim finds a "magic coin" which can alter reality, and uses it improve his life: make his mom not an alcoholic, make his crush like him, etc. However, each change creates snowballing changes, often of a monkey's paw nature.<br /><br />Without getting into moderate spoilers for the nature of the premise (revealed about a third of the way in) about all I can say is that yes, it does deal with the moral implications of "make someone like you," but other implications aren't dealt with as well. As a whole, the novel is solid and gripping but not quite inspired; the second half moves away from extrapolation and into action, and the extrapolation was more interesting.<br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1102810.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007C6PTN8/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B007C6PTN8&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Fair Coin</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B007C6PTN8" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1102810" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1102810.htmlgenre: science fictionauthor: myers e cgenre: young adultpublic12http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1101960.htmlFri, 22 Mar 2013 19:39:30 GMTAnd All the Stars, by Andrea K. Hosthttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1101960.html
<i>Come for the apocalypse.<br />Stay for cupcakes.<br />Die for love.</i><br /><br />Solid, inventive, well-characterized YA science fiction. By “science fiction,” I mean “cool powers and alien invasion,” not “paper-thin dystopia in which the government’s main concern appears to be micro-managing the love triangles of teenagers.”<br /><br />Madeleine, an aspiring artist, visits Sydney to paint her cousin Tyler’s portrait. Tyler is a famous cross-dressing actor, and probably my favorite character in the book despite his comparatively small part. <br /><br />Her plans are stymied by an alien invasion. Starry towers rise up from the cities, and dust falls from the sky. Some people are given powers, others strange vulnerabilities, and still yet others are possessed by aliens. Stars shine from Madeleine’s skin, and she gets together with other teenagers to learn to use their powers and try to save the world. <br /><br />The opening sequence, in which Madeleine tries to escape from a wrecked subway station, gets the book off to a great start. I stalled out for a while in a slow sequence in which the teenagers are interminably holed up in a hotel, but the story picks up enormously after that. <br /><br />Host has a lot of respect for teenagers, and I liked the unabashedly heroic tone of the story. Rather than taking the apocalypse as an excuse for an orgy of rape and cannibalism, Host’s characters band together, form a community, explore their new relationships, take the time to make plans that make sense, and risk their lives for a cause they believe in. It’s engaging, uplifting, and, by the end, surprisingly moving. <br /><br />This isn’t a flawless novel. Some events are confusing or poorly set-up, some of the dialogue is clunky, and I read the explanation of the alien invasion three times and I still don’t understand it. Too many characters are introduced in too-quick succession, and I didn’t realize that “Emily” and “Millie” were the same person with a nickname until I got to the cast of characters at the end. The sequence at the end with Gavin was really confusing, too. The book could have used one more rewrite. <br /><br />However, so could at least half of the professionally edited YA novels I’ve read recently, many of which have glaring continuity errors, nonsensical motivations, ridiculous worldbuilding, unlikable characters, and, often, proofreading errors and poor formatting. In some cases, they are nothing but a string of action sequences strung together by plot holes. <br /><br /><i>And All the Stars</i> isn’t <i>Code Name Verity</i>. But it’s imaginative, well-thought-out, and heartfelt. I will definitely read more of Host’s books. <br /><br />Giant spoilers lurk below.<br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1101960.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B009JQLL2W/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=B009JQLL2W&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">And All the Stars</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=B009JQLL2W" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" />. Only $4.99!<br /><br />Host self-publishes because <a href="https://sites.google.com/a/andreakhost.com/the-glacier/">of the glacial pace of traditional publishing, which got one of her novels stuck in review for TEN YEARS.</a> <br /><br />But there may be other reasons as well, which have nothing to do with the quality of her writing. Again, I'm not saying that she's one of the absolute best YA writers out there. But based on this, she's certainly one of the better ones. And when I say "better ones," I mean "compared to all the YA novels I've been reading that come out from major publishers," not "compared to the slush pile."<br /><br />Speaking only of American publishing, which is the only publishing I know anything about, I can see why this novel would be a hard sell. It is not set in America, it involves aliens, and the tone and style are different from most YA sf I've read recently. (And there are gay characters, though in the supporting cast.) For a first-time author, those could be insurmountable obstacles. <br /><br /><a href="http://mcahogarth.org/?p=10923">M. C. A. Hogarth has a thought-provoking article on those issues.</a> Maybe the audience for books about middle-aged female Hispanic space Marines is small. Maybe the audience for psychic Australian teenagers fighting aliens is small. But I'm glad that e-publishing makes it possible now for those books to find their audience.<br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1101960" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1101960.htmlgenre: science fictiongenre: young adultauthor: host andreaapocalypse: alien invasiongenre: psychic kidspublic13http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1099892.htmlTue, 19 Feb 2013 22:41:00 GMTObernewtyn, by Isobelle Carmodyhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1099892.html
I have often had this book recommended to me as a small classic of YA sf in the subcategories of post-apocalyptic, psychic kids, and Australian. It was written in 1987, when there wasn't quite such a glut of psychic kid and post-apocalyptic YA as accumulated later on. But it was still unimpressive.<br /><br />As is explained in prologue of infodump, after a nuclear war, mutations and science were banned. Mutants can be executed or exiled if caught.<br /><br />Teenage Elspeth is a telepathic mutant who can read minds, force people to do her bidding, and communicate with animals. She also has other extremely powerful abilities which are revealed later, when it's convenient for her to be able to unlock doors and kill people with her brain. Despite these abilities, her family has been executed and she is in a precarious position, under threat of death if her talents are discovered. Her brother, a teenage total jerk, has a somewhat higher status for reasons I forget and is not very helpful to her.<br /><br />She ends up exiled to a prison/lab/boarding house for teenage mutants. There she is forced to slave in the kitchens, while sinister experiments are going on off-page. This section occupies about two-thirds of the book, and it felt like absolutely nothing was going on.<br /><br />I was mostly bored by the book. Elspeth has very little personality. In fact, the only character with personality is a stray cat. Though a summary of events would make it seem like exciting things are happening, they are often narrated rather than shown, and are so underdeveloped that the sense is that nothing is happening. Dullsville. <br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0375857672/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=0375857672&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Obernewtyn: The Obernewtyn Chronicles 1</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=0375857672" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1099892" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1099892.htmlauthor: carmody isobellegenre: science fictiongenre: young adultgenre: orderly dystopiagenre: psychic kidsapocalypse: warpublic7http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1098102.htmlWed, 06 Feb 2013 21:56:04 GMTCaptain Vorpatril’s Alliance, by Lois McMaster Bujoldhttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1098102.html
I’m catching up on reviews; I read this some time last month. This is a bit unfortunate, because I enjoyed it while I read it, and if I’d reviewed it immediately afterward, I would have been more positive. One month later, I’m finding it un-memorable, which is not what I want from a Vorkosigan book. <br /><br />In other ways, too, it wasn’t what I wanted. I always liked Ivan as a character, and what I probably would have liked best would be something with a tone along the lines of the early Miles books – funny with serious undertones, or serious with lots of funny moments – like <i>The Warrior’s Apprentice</i> or <i>The Vor Game</i>. I would have loved to see Bujold take Ivan a little more seriously, and have him wrestle with taking himself a little more seriously. Alternately, I would have enjoyed a pure light-hearted romp like <i>Cetaganda</i> or <i>Ethan of Athos</i>.<br /><br /><i>Captain Vorpatril’s Alliance</i> had a few good serious moments, and it had some excellent light-hearted romping. But it was embedded in a lot of low-conflict, low-stakes, low-emotion, low-intensity scenes hanging around Barrayar. I found this especially frustrating because I kept seeing how a scene or plot point could have played out in a more interesting way, and then it often didn’t.<br /><br />I did enjoy reading this, so the review is more grumpy than my actual experience of the book. The first quarter or so, on Komarr, was pretty great. Especially the scene with the groats. I also loved the offering to the dead, and the conversation where Tej and Rish talk over their problems and keep coming to the conclusion that they could probably be solved by someone having sex with Byerly.<br /><br />My issues with this book come down to why I love Bujold’s earlier books. They tend to have very intense feelings and high stakes, whether emotional or physical. This book had low-key emotions and low stakes. It had some good comic scenes, but was too slow-paced to work as pure comedy. <br /><br />The issue of stakes also applies to comedy, as a lot of comedy only works if the characters are extremely, extremely worried that something will go wrong, and are putting tons of effort into ensuring that it won’t, or trying to fix it if it does. A lot of this book would have been funnier if the characters had been more frantic. <br /><br />Spoilers below.<br /><br /><span class="cuttag_container"><span style="display: none;" id="span-cuttag___1" class="cuttag"></span><b>(&nbsp;<a href="http://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1098102.html#cutid1">Read more...</a>&nbsp;)</b><div style="display: none;" id="div-cuttag___1" aria-live="assertive"></div></span><br /><br />Please feel free to put spoilers in comments.<br /><br /><a href="http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1451638450/ref=as_li_tf_tl?ie=UTF8&amp;camp=1789&amp;creative=9325&amp;creativeASIN=1451638450&amp;linkCode=as2&amp;tag=racmanbro-20">Captain Vorpatril's Alliance (Vorkosigan Saga)</a><img src="http://www.assoc-amazon.com/e/ir?t=racmanbro-20&amp;l=as2&amp;o=1&amp;a=1451638450" width="1" height="1" border="0" alt="" style="border:none !important; margin:0px !important;" /><br /><br /><img src="http://www.dreamwidth.org/tools/commentcount?user=rachelmanija&ditemid=1098102" width="30" height="12" alt="comment count unavailable" style="vertical-align: middle;"/> commentshttp://rachelmanija.dreamwidth.org/1098102.htmlgenre: science fictionauthor: bujold lois mcmasterpublic27